Verizon has released their first quarter earnings, which show the company generated $29.42 billion in revenues and $1.95 billion in profit for the quarter, just slightly below Wall Street analyst expectations. The company's earnings were as usual fueled by wireless, with Verizon adding 677,000 contract users on the quarter. Verizon says that their LTE network is now available to 287 million people in 491 markets across the United States.

Total revenue for wireless services was $19.5 billion, up 6.8% from this time last year, thanks in part to Verizon's use of shared data plans -- which lower voice and SMS costs for users but dramatically increase data pricing to the tune of $15 per gigabyte overages.

Speaking on the company's conference call with analysts and the media, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo this morning stated that they expect to have their first LTE-only handsets available to consumers early next year. The company has been using their EVDO (3G) network primarily for prepaid customers. Verizon also stated that they expect to have higher quality voice over LTE (VoLTE) handsets in consumer hands by early 2014.

As the chart above illustrates, Verizon continues to quite intentionally bleed DSL and copper phone customers, offset by the addition of 188,000 FiOS Internet and 169,000 FiOS TV customers on the quarter. At the end of Q1, Verizon claimed a total of 5.6 million FiOS Internet and 4.9 million FiOS TV subscribers, and 8.9 million total broadband lines overall. Verizon's waged a rather quiet war on DSL users in the hopes they'll flee to cable or wireless, resulting in just 3.3 million DSL users left to scare away or upgrade.